It has been useful for hypochlorite generation from seawater or other brine solutions, as for sewage treatment and disinfection, to provide on-site electrolytic cells. Such cells can frequently have plate anodes and cathodes arranged in parallel with the resulting parallel plates being closely spaced apart and all contained in a single housing member. For various devices and electrode plate configurations see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,925,176, 4,179,347, 4,292,175 and 4,248,690.
It has also been proposed for on-site hypochlorite generation to provide concentric electrodes. This configuration includes an insulating spacer between anode and cathode. An additional concentric electrode can either be mounted within the anode, spacer and cathode, or the additional cathode can house such anode, spacer and cathode. In either case, the additional electrode serves as a bipolar electrode, such as has been shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,873,438.
It would however be desirable to provide multiple bipolar electrodes within a generator housing while maintaining excellent cell efficiency coupled with high fluid throughput. It would also be highly desirable to provide such a cell adapted for easy access, thereby facilitating cleaning and repair.